OK, I know that July 4th is supposed to be THE bbq day here in the U.S. of A. It’s been drilled into me year after year after year. BBQ or else!

Well, this July 4th, I did NOT bbq! But I DID cook outdoors…..without fire!! Impossible you say? I say nay nay nay! Eminently possible…especially if you’ve got one of these:

This, my friends is a true solar cooker. Uses nothing but the sun. And it works even if it’s partly cloudy, like today was here in SENM. 🙂

It unfolds and has a cooking chamber just right for medium sized dishes and pots and pans.

Today I did a beef round roast. I used carrots, onion, potatoes, the roast and a couple of bay leaves. The roast had been seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning before it was frozen (froze it several months ago, packed in a food saver vacuumed bag). I whacked up the ‘taters, carrots, celery and onion, stuck them into the pot and slipped a couple of bay leaves into it. Then, out to the Sun Oven which had been heating for about 15 minutes, slip it inside, close the glass top after putting in my thermometers, and let ‘er rip. The oven only got up to a high of 275 today due to the clouds. Usually it’ll get up to almost 400! WOWZERS!!

I let the roast go for 4 hours and turned the oven to keep it facing the sun. During the cooking, towards the end, I made some of Meathead’s Garlic Mashed Potatoes to go with the roast and veggies. See his site at www.amazingribs.com for the recipe (let him know I sent ya! LOL)

When the roast was done, I took the pot into the house. Here’s what it looked like:

Slice the meat: put a piece or 2 on a plate, add the garlic mashed potatoes, some of the veggies, a little gravy over the roast and ‘taters, some butter on the veggies and chow down.

For a non-bbq 4th of July, we sure ate well. Definitely heresy, but what the heck, right? As long as it comes out good!

Happy 4th of July to ya’ll!

P.S.

Our DS and I bought a few fireworks and after the city fireworks, which were awesome…first time they did them to music,,,we had a blast setting them off. 🙂

Starting Friday afternoon, I set up my Weber Silver (WS) with a really cool device called an IQ110 by a company here in the U.S. called pitmasteriq. The address of their site with their products is http://store.pitmasteriq.com/auteco.html . The IQ110 has a kind of steel cup that fastens onto one of the bottom vents of the Weber (has attachments for all the popular pits on the site) with a toggle bolt. There is s temperature sensor probe that fastens to the inside of the pit on the grill. Finally, there is a thermostat/motor that blows air when the temperature is lower than what the thermostat is set at. You tape up the other 2 vents with heat resistant tape. The IQ110 automatically controls the temperature of the WS and gives the chef lots of free time. In fact, I cooked a brisket overnight on Friday/Saturday and only had to add charcoal 2X between 7 PM Friday and 2 PM Saturday. As the site says “BLOW your pit!”

Anywho, I started my brisket about 7 PM Friday, May 24. It went until about 2 PM Saturday but never got above 180 degrees. Drat! Soooooooo, I took it off the WS, put it in a cooking bag and finished it in the oven at 225 degrees until the inner temp was 203 degrees. Tender as buttah!

While the brisket was on the WS on Saturday afternoon early, I started some pork ribs I’d rubbed the night before (yeah, I’ve got 2 WS’s!). I usually cook them “high and fast” as opposed to “low and slow” but this time I thought I’d try them low and slow. Well, long story short, after 6 hours they were cooked, but not tender. I put them in the oven at 250 degrees for a couple of hours and about all that was happening was they were drying out. Today I said “The heck with this!” and got out the crock pot. Yeah, I bet there’s folks that are shuddering in their shoes about this! Well too bad! About 3 hours in the crock pot and I had falling-off-the-bone tender ribs! Sweetie and Bunny and I polished them off this evening…..2 full slabs. YUMMY!